MANILA, Philippines—Twenty-three years after the 1986 People Power Revolution, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile on Sunday gave those who cared to listen a peek at what had been hurting him, why he had been snubbing official celebrations of the historic uprising.

The anniversary of EDSA I is officially observed every Feb. 25, the day the dictator Ferdinand Marcos fled Malacañang and Corazon “Cory” Aquino was sworn in as President.

But Enrile, the defense minister of Marcos, and members of the Reform the AFP Movement, which was renamed Rebolusyonaryong Alyansang Makabansa (RAM)—the once shadowy unit that sparked the revolt—have stayed away from those festivities.

Instead, they have been quietly commemorating EDSA I on Feb. 22, the day they withdrew their support from the Marcos regime.

But that may be changing. Malacañang officials said Enrile was expected to be at Wednesday’s official commemoration rites at the EDSA Shrine in Quezon City marking the 23rd anniversary of the four-day revolt.

Sounding humble and mellowed when he spoke at a wreath-laying ceremony at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes’ Cemetery) on Sunday, Enrile said that Feb. 25 “deserves the nation’s remembrance.”

He also noted that the previous Feb. 25 festivities had seemingly “glossed over” the role of the soldiers at EDSA I.

“I have long nursed a certain discomfiture at being paraded as an EDSA hero, while those who bravely dared to fight the hard battle with us seemed to have been forgotten, their idealism ignored, and even their heroic contribution belittled,” Enrile said.

He said the political landscape today would have been different “if not for the courage and the commitment of men behind RAM, like Col. Tirso Gador, who gambled their lives to redeem the freedom of our countrymen.”

Final judge

History would be the final judge, Enrile said.

“To recall what transpired since Feb. 22, 1986, to put the blame where the blame lies, and to place credit where much credit has not been acknowledged, will simply make one a sour grape,” he said.

“Whatever pain I went through, whatever form of prejudice and injustice I may have been a victim (of), is best left in my heart and for history to judge beyond my time,” he said.

“But this I need to say: Those soldiers who were really with us in EDSA never asked for any reward, recognition, much less power. All they asked from the new leaders then was real reform and good government.”

Enrile said Feb. 22, 1986, was “a day for difficult decisions to be made and for personal sacrifices to be offered for the greater good.”

Plot uncovered

Early that morning, Enrile said he went to the Atrium building in Makati City with his daughter Katrina, primarily to rebut a newspaper headline that he had left the country with his family.

At the Atrium, Enrile received a call from then Finance Minister Bobby Ongpin whose security men—all members of the RAM—were being arrested.

Enrile said his military aide, then Capt. Noe Wong, also arrived with the chilling information that the RAM plot to oust Marcos had been discovered.

Wong also told him that RAM members Allen Querubin, Lt. Col. Marcelino “Jake” Malajacan, Maj. Saulito “Lito” Aromin, Capt. Ricardo “Dick” Morales and two others had been arrested and detained at the Presidential Security Command in Malacañang.

“I fully grasped the significance of the unfolding event. And so I went home hurriedly with my daughter to take my lunch,” Enrile recalled.

2 options

After lunch, Wong arrived with Colonels Gregorio Honasan and Red Kapunan. “They informed me that all RAM and political opposition leaders would be arrested and detained at the Caraballo Island,” Enrile said.

He said Honasan, who was his chief for security, offered two options: Launch a guerrilla war in the countryside or take a stand in the city.

Enrile said he opted to take a stand at the Department of National Defense building in Camp Aguinaldo.

“Before I left my house, I asked Cristina, my wife, to inform the late Jaime Cardinal Sin what I was about to do.”

Enrile also made a call to then Constabulary chief Lt. Gen. Fidel V. Ramos. “I asked him if he could join us. He said he would.”

From the DND building, Enrile said he called US Ambassador Stephen Bosworth, Japanese Ambassador Kiyoshi Sumiya and Rafael Salas, the Filipino executive director of the United Nations Population Fund.

Calls from Sin, Cory

At about 3:30 p.m., Enrile gave an interview over Radio Veritas to confirm reports that he was abandoning the Marcos regime.

He also informed Brig. Gen. Pedro Balbanero, head of the Military Police, about his plan. Then Postmaster General Roilo Golez, Brig. Gen. Ramon Farolan, former Armed Forces Chief of Staff Gen. Romeo Espino and Col. Rolando Abadilla also came to see him.

A little after 4 o’clock, Enrile received a call from Sin.

“He asked me the same thing as the others did. I gave him the same story. He said, ‘I will pray for you,’” Enrile said.

An hour later, Enrile received a call from Cory Aquino from Cebu. “She asked me if what she heard was true … I said, ‘Yes, Madam,’” Enrile said.

Finally, sleep comes

Abadilla returned with a message to Enrile that Gen. Fabian Ver, the AFP chief of staff, wanted to talk to him.

“General Ver asked me why I was withdrawing my support for the President. I told him it was too late to discuss the matter. He asked me if we could talk. I said yes, but not on that night … (but) the following morning, I was stalling to gain time for the remaining RAM men to reach the city,” Enrile said.

“After all these were done, I attended to the throng of visitors flooding my room in Camp Aguinaldo. Thereafter, I went to sleep.”

About 72 hours later, Marcos, bereft of all power, was on his way to Hawaii (where he died several years later)—and Cory Aquino on her way to Malacañang.

WE didn’t think it was possible, but the administration that sought to minimize the role of the first Edsa People Power revolution in our history and then belatedly tried to contain the public relations damage by announcing a commemorative holiday for students managed to deepen the insult with an outrageous offense on Sunday.

Speaking at the wreath-laying ceremony to mark the start of the 23rd anniversary of the political phenomenon known as Edsa I, President Macapagal-Arroyo celebrated that particular turning point in history by warning that “the world” would not tolerate a third People Power uprising.

“The world embraced Edsa 1 in 1986. The world tolerated Edsa 2 in 2001. The world will not forgive an Edsa 3 but will instead condemn the Philippines as a country whose political system is unstable,” the principal beneficiary of Edsa 2 intoned.

What she means is that she will not forgive an Edsa 3, because it would come at her expense.

Stripped of ceremonial rhetoric, the President’s offensive and ungenerous statement gives expression to the pervasive fear that afflicts her administration: It is haunted by its continuing crisis of legitimacy.

The true glory of both Edsa 1, which we remember this week, and Edsa 2, which we were encouraged to forget last month, is that they were the right thing to do. An “Edsa,” in other words, is not merely the people-powered ouster of a government; it is the people-powered ouster of a fraudulent, illegitimate or deeply corrupt government.

If a third Edsa happens, it will be because the Filipino people have had enough of a wicked government, and because the normal processes that enable the public to keep the essential promise of democracy—for the citizens to choose their leaders, and to kick them out for cause—have been closed off or co-opted. If a third Edsa happens, “the world” may or may not celebrate. But we are certain of one thing: Only public officials in authoritarian societies or in compromised democracies will find reason to fear it.

Which brings us back to the Arroyo administration’s deliberate undermining of the Edsa legacy.

Take a look at Proclamation 1699, which lists the regular holidays and special non-working holidays of 2009. Issued on Dec. 24 last year, or a mere two months before the Edsa 1 anniversary, the proclamation failed to include any of the days between Feb. 22 (the date 23 years ago when then-Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and then-Lt. Gen. Fidel Ramos repudiated the Marcos regime, and the first crowds gathered on Edsa) and Feb. 25 (when Ferdinand Marcos fled the Philippines) in the exclusive list.

Now consider Proclamation 1728, issued on Feb. 19, 2009, or less than a week ago. The new proclamation belatedly declared Feb. 23 “as a special holiday for all private and public schools at all levels throughout the country.”

We have previously recognized the Arroyo administration’s deft use of holiday politics to make public policy, or to nudge public opinion in a certain direction. We speak, in particular, of the decision to include the great Islamic holy day of Eid’l Fitr as a national holiday, and the decision to finally make permanent the observance of August 21 as Ninoy Aquino Day.

Thus, we cannot escape the conclusion that the late declaration of a limited holiday to mark Edsa 1, which struck many as a PR-driven afterthought, must be seen as a deliberate policy statement.

The Palace does not want the people to pay anything more than a cursory nod to the Edsa 1 anniversary—they may, you know, get crazy ideas.

This is a policy stance that reflects, not the public’s thoughts, but the administration’s thinking. The public knows that “the world” will condemn governments which, given evidence of collusion between private contractors and public officials engaged in internationally funded projects, choose to criticize the evidence-gatherer instead. But the Arroyo administration does not see this reality, or chooses not to. Instead, it condemns the very possibility of another Edsa uprising as an index of instability. Easy enough to understand, of course: A fear-ridden government is spooked by its own shadow.

MANILA, Philippines—It was a wheel within a wheel, a crucial pivot within the larger hinge of Philippine history that was Edsa 1.

The decision of Corazon Aquino to address the crowds on Edsa and expose herself to possible assassins, instead of waiting it out in safety until victory was complete, is a barely acknowledged ”turning point” in the People Power Revolution of 1986.

This was according to a member of her inner circle and eyewitness to Aquino’s course of action—much of it happening away from press coverage—during the tense four-day standoff between military defectors and loyalist troops of strongman Ferdinand Marcos.

Aquino then showed up on a makeshift stage at the POEA at around 4:30 p.m. of Feb. 24, Day 3 of the revolt. The talk was over in minutes, but for Binay and the others privy to the events leading to that brief exposure, it was enough to send a powerful message.

Asserting her leadership

“That was a turn in history. That was Cory asserting her leadership,” Binay said in an interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer on Saturday.

To explain why there was a need for her to make that “assertion,” Binay had to retrace the earlier events of the day.

Since the standoff began, he and fellow human rights lawyer Joker Arroyo were already leading Aquino forces in their Edsa vigil, but that particular morning of Feb. 24 they were inside one of the buildings in Camp Crame for a “meeting” with the rebel forces.

(Binay vividly remembered that it was the same morning an Air Force helicopter wing led by Col. Antonio Sotelo defected from Marcos and landed at Camp Crame to join the rebels.)

Out of the loop

“Joker was in the [meeting] room and I was waiting outside talking to [folk singer and anti-Marcos activist] Freddie Aguilar,” he recalled. “When Joker finally came out, he told me: ‘Mukhang malayo na tayo rito. Mukhang malayo na rin si Cory (We seem to be out of the loop already. So is Cory).”’

“Ang nagmamando na sina Ramos, kasi wala si Cory dito physically (It’s Fidel Ramos and company calling the shots because Cory is not here physically). They were calling the [foreign] embassies, the press; they were calling the shots,” Binay recalled Joker telling him.

Leaving the camp, the two lawyers walked all the way to a colleague’s house on Horseshoe Drive in Quezon City and from there, contacted Aquino by phone. The day before (Feb. 23), Aquino had quietly returned from Cebu and was staying at a sister’s house in Wack Wack subdivision in Mandaluyong.

Coming out

By 10 a.m. that morning, Arroyo, Binay, other key Aquino supporters were gathered for a meeting at Greenhills, San Juan. Aquino was personally briefed by Joker about his earlier meeting in Camp Crame and about his sense of alarm over who’s “calling the shots,” Binay said.

“The long and short of it is that Cory told us: “Lalabas tayo (We’re coming out),” Binay told the Inquirer.

The duly elected President of the February 1986 snap elections had given her stand, and “nobody dared to disagree with her (wala nang kumontra),” Binay said.

Aquino then asked his younger brother Jose “Peping” Cojuangco—who in that meeting affectionately addressed her as “Ate (elder sister)”—to look for a spot on Edsa where she could address the crowd.

Coverage against snipers

Why was the POEA building chosen? For one, its lobby allowed a wide view of the spectators but still provided ample overhead coverage against “snipers,” Binay explained.

Asked how Edsa I would have turned out had Aquino not “come out” that day, Binay said the initial sense of his group was that a “troika” or a “collective leadership”—rather than the Aquino presidency as Filipinos now know it—could have risen to power.

The following day, Feb. 25, at 10:45 a.m., Corazon Aquino took her oath as President at Club Filipino.

Last-minute glitch

But Binay recalled that even that climactic moment of Edsa I encountered a last-minute glitch—though not because of factors traceable to the renegade military machinery holding fort at Camp Crame.

It was because of a breakdown of another piece of machinery: the vehicle that was supposed to take Aquino from Wack Wack to Club Filipino that morning simply wouldn’t start and had to be fixed first, delaying the oath-taking ceremony by about half-an-hour, Binay said, smiling.

MANILA, Philippines—The memory of those four days in EDSA burns in my mind as vividly today as it did 23 years ago.

I was then a political reporter for the black and white Mr. & Ms. magazine that the intrepid Eugenia Duran-Apostol had converted from a women’s magazine rich with advice on parenting, human sexuality and kitchen recipes, into the vanguard of the Philippine “mosquito press” right after the assassination of Ninoy Aquino in August 1983.

That week in February 1986 had been choked with events.

On Feb. 11, opposition leader and former Antique Gov. Evelio Javier was brutally murdered in the plaza of San Jose, Antique, while guarding the votes of Corazon Aquino in the snap presidential election. Clasped in his hand was a blood-soaked rosary.

His remains were met by huge throngs in Manila. At his wake in the Baclaran Church, many European ambassadors showed up. On the way to Ateneo de Manila University, where the remains would lie in state, crowds wept in the streets, a reprise of Ninoy’s funeral two and a half years earlier.

Earlier, the canvassing of election votes at the Batasan Pambansa had been skewered by Marcos allies, and Cory Aquino took to the Luneta to launch the first of an intended series of boycott rallies against products of Marcos cronies. It broke attendance records.

Through the days, rumors swept the city of the impending arrests of opposition leaders, the media, militant church, business and the left, under “Oplan Mad Dog” of Armed Forces Chief of Staff Fabian Ver. Rumors had it that they would all be dumped into Caraballo Island off Corregidor.

My particular narrative about EDSA I properly begins on the evening of Monday, Feb. 17, at the Loyola House of Studies chapel. It was the last day of the wake and Evelio was to be flown for burial in Antique the next morning.

Cory came to the wake. Seeing Eggie and me, she told Eggie she should send me to Cebu City on Saturday, Feb. 22, as she would be bringing the boycott campaign there.

At 5 a.m. the following day, Tuesday, I was aboard a small single-engine plane bound for Antique for Evelio’s funeral. It was piloted by the late humanities professor Fr. James Donelan, S.J., with Fr. Bienvenido Nebres, S.J., as copilot.

Fr. Donelan, bless his Irish humor, joked that should the plane go down, either he or Fr. Nebres (now Ateneo de Manila University president) should be able to give me a quick absolution. It was not comforting.

Saturday seemed like another typical opposition day I would cover for Mr. & Ms.

Arriving in Cebu that afternoon, I checked into Magellan Hotel. Then the phone rang and Mike Suarez of The Associated Press, whom I had run into at the lobby, said: “Bel, have you heard? Enrile and Ramos just broke away from Marcos and are holed up at Camp Aguinaldo.”

My heart pounded. Where would this lead to? I wondered where my husband (then Col. Thelmo Cunanan), who had been serving at the defense department under Juan Ponce Enrile for more than a decade, was. I tried to reach him by phone at his Camp Aguinaldo office, but couldn’t.

How to tell Cory

I ran to Fuente Osmeña, the rally site, pondering how I could share this very sensitive information with Cory and the other leaders. A huge crowd blocked the streets and the stage filled up fast. Cory and Doy Laurel arrived with the other big guns of the opposition.

When the rally began, I realized from the speeches that no one had any idea what was going on in Manila. I agonized over how best to approach Cory during the rally.

I saw former Rep. John Osmeña and told him about the news from Manila. Quickly, he tied it to the rumor of arrests and Caraballo Island.

“Eto na ang ‘Operation Mad Dog’, eto na (This is ‘Operation Mad Dog’ this is it’),” he kept saying, adding, ‘Tell Cory now.’ But before I could do so, the rally had ended and she was hustled off stage.

Coke story

I verified that Cory was staying at the residence of Norberto Quisumbing of Norkis. I found her in the living room alone, looking relaxed.

But before I could report on the Manila happening, she queried me about how the wedding reception for Judy Roxas’ daughter, Ria, held a few days earlier at the gardens of Bahay na Puti in Cubao, had gone.

I recounted how Gretchen Cojuangco, wife of Eduardo Cojuangco, had asked for a Coke at the reception, but since the Roxas household was on boycott, there was no Coke. Gretchen asked an aide to buy a big bottle from the corner store and displayed it on the table.

Since Cory got engrossed with the Coke story, I forgot all about the Manila happening—until then Assemblyman Ramon Mitra walked in. I told him what was happening in Manila and his first query was: Did you tell Cory? I said, not yet, and he barked, “Ano pa ang hiniintay mo (What are you waiting for)?”

Cory finally told

I told Cory about the breakaway and she listened intently, saying, ‘A, ganoon’ (So that’s it). But the full import apparently did not sink in yet, as she returned to the Coke episode.

The other leaders arrived and went into a caucus with Cory. Aside from Mitra, they included Assemblymen Antonio Cuenco, Raul del Mar, Homobono Adaza, Jose “Peping” Cojuangco, Aquilino Pimentel and John Osmeña.

About 6 p.m., Cory called Enrile and assured him and his group of her prayers.

If the import of the news from Manila didn’t sink into Cory right away, the other leaders were equally tentative in their assessment. Nobody could tell how that mutiny would play out.

Zero trust

Besides, most of them probably had zero trust in the enforcers of martial law. Ninoy had been incarcerated by the military for over seven years, while Mitra, Pimentel and Adaza had their own taste of Marcos prisons.

Other opposition leaders in Davao, like Chito Ayala and Lito Lorenzana, were seriously studying the idea of setting up a revolutionary government there. Mitra raised the possibility of the opposition staking it out with the Davaoenos.

As a journalist, I was intrigued—and frightened—by the prospect of a revolutionary government. It sounded romantic, but it also could spell all-out war.

As the night wore on, there was need for more news in Manila. I volunteered to go with Cebu educator Manny Go and Adaza to the former’s residence so we could link up with Aguinaldo.

That meant crossing Camp Lapu-Lapu, which made Adaza nervous about not making it back to the Quisumbing house. I suggested he lie on the floor of the car.

We picked up news about tens of thousands of people massing on EDSA.

In the bosom of nuns

The immediate concern of the opposition in Cebu that night was how to secure Cory from Ver’s attack dogs. It was whispered around that a US warship had anchored in the bay, ready to spirit her out, but ultimately it was decided that the safest place in the city was the Carmelite Convent downtown. I was thrilled: It was just like in the Sound of Music.

At about 10 o’clock, under cover of darkness, Cory rode out in a car with daughter Ballsy, her brother Peping, and Cuenco and his wife Nancy, to a warm welcome from the nuns.

Unknown to the nuns, Jaime Cardinal Sin had ordered their Manila sisters to pray before the Blessed Sacrament all night on their knees, with their arms outstretched, until told to stop.

To thwart any possibility of Ver’s soldiers trailing Cory’s group, Miguel Perez Rubio, Manny Go and others, including myself, sat in the open terrace taking wine as though we were in a party and not in a revolution!

Cory into the clouds

It was also decided that the major opposition leaders be secured so that soldiers couldn’t capture them in one sweep. It fell on John Osmeña to hide them one by one in different homes, while we the media trooped back to Magellan Hotel, where we gathered in the lobby to await developments.

After some time, the horde of foreign media began to complain that they had no stories as there were no leaders to talk to.

In the middle of the night, Osmeña was forced to fetch Mitra and Pimentel from their hideaways to brief the media.

For the media in Magellan, it was a long vigil full of tension but also a lot of humor and camaraderie. All of us were aware that history was unfolding and it was a great time to be eyewitnesses!

The next morning Cory held a press conference, reiterating her support for the embattled group of Enrile and Fidel Ramos and urging the people to protect them.

Then she boarded a small Ayala plane for Manila. As it disappeared into the clouds, there was a flurry of questions on everyone’s mind, and prayers sprang from our hearts. Would it be shot out of the skies by Marcos planes? Would Cory be able to land? Would she be arrested?

The next two days provided fortuitous answers, and the Marcos regime was over.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile was guest of honor at the wreath-laying by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo at the Libingan ng mga Bayani [Heroes’ Cemetery], the traditional ritual that opened this year’s observance of the 23rd anniversary of the EDSA People Power Revolution.

If I am not mistaken, Monday was the first time that the official who led the breakaway from the Ferdinand Marcos regime showed up at such an occasion. One reason may be that he has been at odds with former President Cory Aquino since November 1986, when his resignation as defense minister was accepted by the latter, and over the years, while Ms Aquino was prominent in these celebrations even when she was no longer in office, Enrile wouldn’t come to the EDSA People Power celebrations. He and the leaders of the Reform the Armed Forces of the Philippines Movement (RAM), with whom he has nurtured close ties over the years, marked their own observance at Libingan at the gravesite of the late RAM leader Col. Tirso Gador.

* * *

Thus his candid remarks at last Sunday’s opening celebrations aroused curiosity for a number of reasons. It established, for one, his current ties with the President, who happens to have been at odds with Aquino since July 8, 2005 when she led calls for Ms Arroyo to step down. When Senate President Manuel Villar was ousted by a new majority and Enrile was installed in his place, rumors swept the chamber that that was with the full blessing of Ms Arroyo. Then came the appointment of Enrile’s wife, Cristina, as ambassador to the Holy See, and now last Sunday’s Libingan event and speech.

This is, I suppose, yet another illustration of how politics works in this country. As the saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. But I can’t help but wonder if we will ever, at another EDSA People Power anniversary celebration, see our top leaders gather together, regardless of political differences. Something like the recent picture we saw in the US after the victory of Barack Obama that showed him smiling together with the four ex-presidents, regardless of how the three Democrats attacked George W. Bush over the past years and during the campaign. After all, unity is being generously bandied around during these four days.

* * *

Enrile confessed to being miffed at the way some of the soldiers who were with him at the EDSA People Power uprising were treated shabbily over the years, despite their sacrifices, heroism and ideals. I think it’s a matter of communication. There is no doubt that while most people appreciate the RAM’s role, they also clearly see it as a catalyst of events.

A lot of us believe that the foundation for the 1986 events was laid as far back as the 1972 First Quarter Storm, in the struggle by the Left, the fight of prominent human rights lawyers such as Joker Arroyo and Rene Saguisag against the regime through the martial law years, the assassination of Ninoy Aquino and Evelio Javier, the walkout of the computer workers, the stand of the bishops against Marcos, the boycott of crony products and many other events. In our long journey to democracy, it was Ninoy’s brutal death that broke the dam of the people’s outrage that had been building up against the Marcos regime, priming them for the ultimate sacrifice when they came out at the EDSA highway to protect Enrile and Fidel Ramos. The military mutiny merely hastened Marcos’ downfall.

It should also be pointed out that the disenchantment people felt later toward the RAM was also due to the fact that it rocked the Aquino administration with seven or eight coup attempts that seriously set back the country’s economic recovery.

* * *

After the Libingan ceremony, Cecile Alvarez and I interviewed for our dzRH radio program the following members of the Edsa People Power Commission: Sr. Luz Emanuel Soriano, Anggie Barrera, Lito Lorenzana, Pastor Saycon and Tess Baltazar, as well as Presidential Adviser on global warming and climate change Heherson Alvarez, on their respective recollections of the four days at EDSA. We were able to establish several things. One is that this four-day phenomenon in February 1986 was not an overnight development, but it grew out of years of confronting the Marcos forces and defying safety. The second is that it was the combined efforts of so many groups not just here in the Philippines but around the world, such as those of the Alvarezes, Raul Manglapus, Raul Daza, Boni Gillego and young Jesuit student Fernando Peña in the US; Chit and Bert Pedrosa’s group in the UK, Tomas Concepcion and others in Italy, etc.

* * *

I arrived at the Libingan last Sunday a bit early, so I sat for a while beside the Senate president who was having a chat with Heherson Alvarez. He revealed that the efforts of the RAM group that he encouraged were also not an overnight development and that they had been mulling the idea of going against Marcos for sometime. In fact, said Enrile, he would send senior military officers like Col. Brigido Figueroa and my husband from time to time to get a pulse of the people’s sentiment on Marcos at the grassroots, even though these officers were never part of the exclusivity-transfixed RAM. I can believe this revelation about mutiny plans afoot, as it was no secret that Enrile and Gen. Fabian Ver, Marcos’ military chief of staff, had been at odds for some time already.

Enrile also revealed that when the canvassing of snap election votes was being conducted at the Batasang Pambansa [National Legislature] and it was becoming clear that Cory Aquino was going to be cheated of victory, a politician approached him and asked what the military would do if this transpired. Meaning, would the military take over if the will of the electorate was to be thwarted? He said his reply was that in such eventuality “the military would know what to do.” No one foresaw that the sudden arrest of Trade and Industry Minister Roberto Ongpin’s security people provided by Enrile would come up at the time.

MANILA, Philippines – (UPDATE) President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s statement about how the world does not need another EDSA is “self-serving” and that Filipinos will always have a reason for a popular revolt for as long as she stays in power, her critics in and our of government said Monday.

Arroyo was quoted as saying that the world would not forgive another EDSA revolution because it would show the Philippines as being politically unstable.

The first EDSA revolution was in Feb. 25, 1986, three years after former Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. was assassinated at the then Manila International Airport and his widow, Corazon, led the military-backed popular uprising that toppled 20-year dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

The second was in January 2001 when then president Joseph Estrada, after a three-year stay in office, was ousted by another military-backed and bloodless uprising that installed Arroyo, then vice president, in power.

“That’s a self-serving statement when in fact the world at that time honored us. She [Arroyo] is the one who besmirched EDSA,” said Leah Navarro, a convenor of the Black and White movement.

Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) said Arroyo’s statement would only show that she was an ingrate.

“After benefiting from people power, she now condemns it as a political aberration. She has in fact attempted to quash it every chance she gets. Such an insecure president,” said Reyes, referring to several protests that called for Arroyo’s resignation.

Navarro said Arroyo’s “holiday economics” or order to move the holiday from Wednesday to Monday was also not good because it did not show the true meaning of EDSA.

“I wish they would have thought of something else…who is she trying to avoid?” said Navarro. She added that Arroyo also never paid attention to the EDSA 2 anniversary last January.

Bayan Muna partylist Representative Teodoro Casiño said in a text message said people power was an “antidote to corrupt leaders like her who undermine democracy, violate human rights, and abuse state power. No wonder she is so paranoid.”

Casiño said that contrary to the President’s statements, the world would be more unforgiving if the Filipinos abandon people power and allow the rule of another tyrant.

Another partylist lawmaker, Rafael Mariano of Anakpawis, said “Filipinos will always have just reasons to protest and oppose Arroyo’s brand of corrupt and repressive leadership.”

“What would be highly unacceptable to the people all over the world is another Gloria. It is Ms Arroyo who never learned from the lessons of people power,” Mariano said, stressing that “the political and economic bases for another people’s uprising exist.”

“Ms Arroyo’s perpetuation of unabated and large-scale corruption, gross human rights violations, desperate clinging to power to the extent of declaring a state of emergency in 2006 and the planned Charter change, and subservience to US dictates fuels people’s resistance and highly condemnable to the world’s people,” Mariano said.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Aquino will not participate in any activity to commemorate the people power revolution because she will undergo chemotherapy this week for her colon cancer, according to her spokesperson Deedee Sytangco.

Navarro said there were would be no rallies because they were also considering the current financial crisis.

Speaking Sunday at the wreath-laying ceremony at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes’ Cemetery) in Taguig City to mark the start of a four-day commemoration of the 1986 People Power Revolution that toppled the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, Arroyo said that another upheaval would earn “condemnation” from the rest of the world.

“The world embraced EDSA I in 1986. The world tolerated EDSA II in 2001. The world will not forgive an EDSA III, but it will instead condemn the Philippines as a country whose political system is hopelessly unstable,” she said.

I thought the use of former acting award winners to pay personal tribute to the acting nominees at Monday’s Oscar awards — to substitute the tribute for the usual name-and-video-clip nomination routine — was a deft touch. It delivered on what first-time host Hugh Jackman had promised, a depression-era awards rite with more show and less biz. It dramatically welcomed the nominees into an elite fraternity of talent (Anthony Hopkins’ lauding of Brad Pitt’s “magnificent” quality as a “character actor” left Angelina Jolie beaming; Shirley Maclaine’s praise for Anne Hathaway amounted to a benediction). Not least, it reminded a global audience that the movies have a long, storied tradition. And that that tradition must be welcomed, assimilated, transcended, lived — in sum, reckoned with—in every movie worth the name.

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Malacañang’s calculated snub of the EDSA People Power I anniversary is offensive on many levels, but it is on the level of tradition that the offense cuts deepest. EDSA I as a political event defined the democracy that was restored, however haphazardly, in 1986; to slight it, or to leave it out of the narrative altogether, is nothing less than an attempt to redefine the tradition behind our democratic project.

Monday’s Philippine Daily Inquirer editorial noted the policy implications of the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration’s grudging decision to declare Monday, Feb. 23, a limited holiday. Call it the cynicism of the practical; the administration would rather forget all about People Power, but realizes it still needs to pay lip service to that which it is most afraid of.

What, exactly, is “EDSA”? Three years ago, on the 20th anniversary of the People Power I revolution, the Philippine Daily Inquirer produced a video documentary that retold the EDSA People Power story in the words (and in some cases the images) of key participants and witnesses. “EDSA 20: Isang Larawan” [EDSA 20: A Picture] helps explain, not only how EDSA People Power I happened, but what it was that actually happened. (At least two clear versions are available on YouTube; simply search for “EDSA 20.”)

The documentary allowed the subjects to talk for as long as they wanted, letting the camera roll. I may be biased (I wrote the script, among other duties), but I thought then and still think now that our sources revealed their very character, in their consistencies and their contradictions: Gringo Honasan and Charles Hotchkiss; June Keithley and Jim Paredes; Ed Lingao and JP Fenix; Butz Aquino; and above all, the two admirable nuns at the center of the famous photograph.

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I wrote the following (in my Newsstand blog) the night of the first broadcast:

Moments after the documentary aired tonight, a friend sent me a congratulatory message, which included the following line: “The nuns were a casting coup.” I could only reply: “It helps that God was the casting director.”

Sisters Ping Ocariza and Terry Burias belong to the Daughters of St. Paul congregation. They had never attended street demonstrations before; the day they helped stop the tanks at the intersection of the EDSA highway and Ortigas Avenue was the first time they joined a mass action. They happened to be at that exact corner because of a chain of accidents: They had signed up for the morning shift that Sunday, Feb. 23, instead of the afternoon. When the tanks arrived they had lost track of their fellow nuns, who had gone back to their vehicle. In the confusion, they had found themselves asked (or pulled, according to Sister Ping) by others in the crowd to move to the front, right where the tanks were … At that crucial juncture, they had found themselves leading a rosary — without a microphone, Sister Terry recalls. (“It was probably the most beautiful rosary I ever said,” she added in Filipino.)

In contrast with the thorough preparations of the rebel soldiers (which went for nought, after the planned coup was discovered), the nuns had no idea, when they woke up on Sunday morning, that they would be called to offer their prayers and their lives, at that fateful intersection. They had no inkling that, like millions of other ordinary Filipinos, they would be called to perform on history’s stage, right before the footlights. Deeply scared and yet strangely, serenely peaceful during the encounter with the tanks, they couldn’t possibly have planned on the iconic role they would assume in the EDSA story.

In hesitant English, Sister Terry summed up what happened to them in EDSA . “In our smallness, God used us as his instrument.”

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Another time, I also wrote:

“In his EDSA 20 interview, reformist leader and Army Col. Gringo Honasan waxed inconsistent … At certain points he would refer to the political component of the plan, which involved reaching out to Cory Aquino’s camp … His intention was to present a more comprehensive explanation of the events of 1986. But at certain points, he also could not deny the simple reality. Ours was ‘a military plan,’ he said. ‘Wala kaming kamuwang-muwang sa People Power. Wala kaming sinasandalan na People Power.’

“[Gringo’s] military rebels did not launch the revolution; like charity, which the Bible assures us covers a multitude of sins, the People Power revolution that redeemed them descended on us like a gift.”

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There will be time to discuss the meaning of the candidacies of the presidential aspirants with the best chance of succeeding in 2010, but it seems to me that the May elections will, in a fundamental sense, be reduced to a vote on the future of EDSA.

Will Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s successor also spurn the legacy of EDSA , or will EDSA — both eruptions of People Power, understood as one — be recovered as a renewed republic’s true foundation stone?